A Girl...

Simon Says - "I Love My Life"

I have decided - I love my life. Good stuff is happening all the time. Naturally, it's punctuated by some negative stuff now and then, a bad year once in a while, but right now, it's very good.

I'll start by talking about how great my job is. I am a consultant. I have one major contract, and it's about a 50% time gig. I only HAVE to work 3 days a week, and I usually spend about one other day per week dealing with the paperwork of being a consultant. On the days I have to go to my client, I can arrive early or late, depending on how I feel. If I'm tired, I can usually sleep in (unless I have an appointment to keep). If I need to leave early, I just get to work earlier that day. I can work a few extra hours on Monday and leave early on Wednesday. I can take a vacation, and then make up the hours the next month. And the best part - at the end of the day, I usually have enough time to go for a run or a bike ride, or surf the web, or send emails. And it pays well enough that I don't have to worry. I'm not rich, but I'm working half time and paying my bills. This is good.

And I have fun. Almost every weekend, there is some sort of adventure to go on. This weekend we went to the San Francisco Love Parade, we watched Gilmore Girls, we went to the Folsom Street Fair, and we saw my favorite band live. That was only ONE weekend. And there are more weekends just around the corner. There is biking at the lake, there are movies, there are drives down the coast, there are vacations in England, there are days at the beach. This is good.

I like playing in my band. I first joined by answering an ad on the internet - we started as like-minded musicians who liked each other. Now it feels like we are a group of friends who happen to be on the same page musically. When we get to honky-tonkin', we burn up the room. I love being able to plow through a song that makes me feel good, that gets me to tap my toes to the music that I AM MAKING. This is good.

I like my apartment. Leah will be moving in soon, and there will be changes, but for the past year, it has been exactly as I have wanted it to be. I have a music room, a martini lounge, a big-ass stereo with speakers in two rooms (TWO ROOMS!), a media room, a beautiful guitar that is fun to play, a dartboard in my kitchen, a million records, and funky furniture. This is good.

I have learned to set reasonable goals for myself, and I am learning to accomplish them instead of setting impossible goals and inevitably failing. I have completed 2 of my three goals for the 2nd half of this year, and the third one is coming up soon. I plan to accomplish it. This is good.

I have a great girlfriend. She is open to new experiences, she is adventurous, and she is fun to hang out with. (and make out with). She loves me, and she accepts my love in return. She is a real person, and therefore not perfect (see: grumpy when tired or sick), but she recognizes it, and understands that I am not perfect either (see: won't do dishes), so we make it work. We make it work quite well. This is good.

There is one shaky area, though. I left a different life a while back, and I have missed it. I have not been in very good contact with some old and very dear friends. I have made some people angry, and I have hurt some feelings. Details are sordid, but it has made me sad at times. The good news is that I am trying to re-open some of those doors (the ones that aren't nailed shut), and I am trying to re-establish some of those connections. In that process, I have experienced some rejection, but I have also experienced some kindness from people I thought I had lost for good. I am hopeful that I can reconcile my old life and my new life, and create a connection between what I used to be and what I am now. This hope was gone for a long time, but it is back now. This is good.

So there you have it.